


Somewhere, a Clock is Ticking

by antiquitea



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-14
Updated: 2011-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:36:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antiquitea/pseuds/antiquitea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick makes his final jump. Lewis is there, and waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere, a Clock is Ticking

It hadn’t hurt.

#

Somewhere, a clock was ticking – and then suddenly, it wasn’t. He furrowed his brow and moved carefully from the spot where he had stood rooted on the floor. He didn’t remember a floor, being beneath his feet moments ago – had he simply forgotten? No, that wasn’t it. It hadn’t been there; he hadn’t been standing. Truthfully, he couldn’t really remember the moments leading up to this one. It was as if he were simply starting all over again. Time had existed, ceased, and then begun again. He didn’t remember how he had gotten there.

The house he found himself in was old, older than he was, and yet it felt strangely new. Something in the stillness of the air around him seemed off, and he couldn’t place it. Yet he didn’t question it, simply accepted it and assumed that all was right with it. The space he occupied was far too quiet, and felt almost as if it shouldn’t be.

The living room, where he had deduced he had been standing, had immaculate hardwood floors, which went against everything the feeling of the house told him. It was furnished simply, yet looked as if all the pieces had been acquired during a day trip to a plethora of antique shops. Everything looked as if it had been carefully selected and deliberately placed in whatever location it happened to be in. Nothing was new. He didn’t even see a television. The house was old; he could feel it in his bones, like it had been there for a long time – an eternity even.

Moving slowly, he eventually found himself in the dining room, which bore a large wooden dining table with matching chairs, all of which had looked like they had been crafted by a steady hand. Despite the stillness of the house, the lack of presence of anyone else but himself, not a speck of dust was to be found. Old, yet strangely new. In the corner, by the window, resided a large china hutch, but all of the shelves were empty, like it had been waiting for someone to move in, to arrive with their dishes and place them there for safe keeping. It looked as if it had never been used.

He found himself standing in front of a worn looking grandfather clock on the opposite side of the room from the window, which looked as if it should be in perfectly working order, except for that it wasn’t. He made a face and ran his hands over the smooth mahogany at its sides, getting closer to inspect it, torn between dissecting the beautiful piece of work in front of him, and leaving it to just be. Sometimes things just stopped working; sometimes clocks just stopped ticking. He caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the glass that protected the face of the clock, and was certain that his mind was playing tricks on him – he hadn’t looked remotely like that in almost fifty years, red hair having given way to silver a while back.

Taking a step back from the timekeeper, he took a moment to look around the dining room. There was nothing familiar about it, he hadn’t even been there before, yet the air around him was restless instead of still as it had been a few minutes before. He felt the presence of something sort of familiar and then he felt cold, despite the view beyond the window of green grass and bright blue skies, which told him that it was likely warm beyond the walls. There was nothing else within his sights from the window – just land and sky. No buildings, no people, and the sun seemed unnaturally bright. There wasn’t even a remnant of snow on the ground. Hadn’t it been winter?

Wanting to investigate more of the house (thinking that perhaps he could find some answers locked away in a cabinet somewhere); he glanced toward an entryway on his right, which would ultimately lead him toward the kitchen. His feet seemed reluctant to move, as if they wanted him to remain in the dining room for just a little bit longer. Turning away from the window, he willed his legs to take him into the kitchen, with its dull yellow floors and mismatched bright green wallpaper. Behind him, a chair scraped against the hardwood floors – the first sound he had heard in the house since the clock had stopped ticking, and the sound of his own footsteps.

He didn’t feel frightened, not even curious. No, he felt comforted.

Lewis Nixon sat at the head of the table, under the window, dealing cards for himself in a game of solitaire. A bottle of Vat 69 sat dangerously close to the edge of the table with a half-filled glass within his reach, and a lit cigarette dangled from his lips. As if his presence wasn’t odd enough, his hair was as raven dark as it had been before the grey hairs began to become more prominent, and he appeared fresh faced, the lines that he had worn on his face in later life weren’t even there.

Not even looking up from his cards, he said, “It’s about time, y’know. I’ve been waiting for a while.”

Dick lacked the capacity to feel shocked, which was probably the best thing for the both of them, considering he was torn between running far away, as fast as his un-cooperating feet could take him, and running to his best friend and hugging him tightly, like he had wanted to for so long. The problem that posed itself to him though was that Lewis was dead, and had been for close to sixteen years.

“Waiting, huh,” Dick said softly, taking to the latter of his options and slowly advancing toward his friend. “Um, how long have you -”

Lewis still didn’t look up. “Been waiting?” he finished, before cursing silently at the playing cards. Dick nodded, but Lewis didn’t even look to see the reaction. “What year is it? 2011?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Yeah. A little over fifteen years I’ve been waiting. Not in this exact spot, mind you. Just … waiting.” He dealt himself some more cards.

“I see,” Dick said, shifting his gaze from his friend to the intricate hardwood dining table. He supposed stranger things had happened, although he couldn’t recall one instant in which those stranger things had happened to him. “Aren’t you -”

“Dead? Yes,” Lewis replied, taking a long pull from his cigarette then removing it from his lips, tapping the ash into an ashtray which Dick hadn’t recalled being there before. It was as if it had materialized out of thin air. There was a silence that lasted for far too long, and Lewis finally looked up from his cards to look at his friend, and Dick was nearly breathless from it. “Dick, you know why you’re here, right?”

Dick Winters was an intelligent man who was able to put two and two together, however the words tasted odd on his lips when he tried to say them. Didn’t saying it or acknowledging it make it that much more true? Of course, that was foolishness. He’d never been the type to deny something happening, or simply willing it to go away. Taking a deep breath, Dick looked out the window, feeling momentarily comforted by the bright sky and immaculate grass within his line of sight. “Because I’m dead too, aren’t I?”

Lewis nodded solemnly, gathering up his cards and placing them in a neat pile beside his ashtray. He indicated that Dick should sit down, and after only a moment’s hesitation he did so, taking the chair to Nixon’s left. Lewis grabbed the glass of whiskey and took a swig from it, and Dick watched him, still reeling from the recent revelation on his part. “So, what happens now?” he finally asked.

“It’s quite simple, really,” Lewis replied, taking another drag of his cigarette. “You begin the next part of your journey. They sent me here to collect you. Far be it from me to say no.”

“Nix, what is all this?” Dick asked, looking around the dining room that he and his friend sat in. It was something that they hadn’t done together in many years. “Where are we?”

“This?” Nixon asked, leaning back in his chair and stretching his arms out, gesturing to the space they occupied. “It’s a house. Just a house. Nothing more, nothing less really. Just a waiting area. A stop before you carry on.” He finished his cigarette, driving the stub into the ashtray. “It’s a meeting place, created just for you. Everyone gets one. Sometimes it isn’t a house, sometimes it’s a garden, a hallway, or whatever They think someone needs.”

Dick chuckled, shaking his head a little. “I don’t need a house. I have a house.”

“ _Had_ ,” Lewis replied, propping his elbows on the table. “You gotta get used to the past-tense, buddy. And you might as well start now.”

Frowning, Winters leaned forward a little, hands laid out in front of him on the table. “I don’t have a house anymore, do I?”

Lewis’ frown matched his friend’s. “Well, technically. I suppose it’s still in your name. But … you’re not going back there.”

Dick appeared to mull this information over for a moment, before looking up at Lewis. “So, what about the house? What about Ethel, the kids? What about everything?”

Smiling a little, Lewis placed his hand over Dick’s. “It’s all still there. Probably will be for quite some time. Ethel will be fine – she’s a hell of a woman. Your kids and grandkid, too. They’ll get by. Hell, Dick … they’re going to miss you a lot. A bunch of people are. But, well, there’s not much you can do.”

Allowing himself a small smile when Lewis swore – here of all places – Winters tried to pull his muddled thoughts together. “This is Purgatory?”

Lewis made a face, tilting his head to the side. “Sort of? It’s not really anything, Dick. Like I said, it’s just a house. Do you want a garden? We can go to a garden instead. I just thought you would want a house. It’s warm here. We spent so much time so long ago just wanting some place warm.”

“A house is fine,” Dick replied, smiling fondly, recalling their days and nights sleeping in holes they made in the frozen ground. “Are you an angel?” he asked Lewis.

Nixon would have fallen out of his chair laughing, but instead pressed his forehead against the table until the laughter finally subsided. Dick didn’t think that it had been _that_ funny, but apparently Lewis had. When he lifted his head from the table, Lewis wiped at his eyes as he attempted to get a couple of words in. “Please, Dick. You knew me for close to fifty years – I am nowhere near the classification of an angel. Besides, angels are silly things.”

“Do they even exist?” Dick asked, still attempting to figure out what Lewis had found so utterly hilarious about his statement.

“Sort of,” Lewis replied.

Dick was getting a little frustrated with all of Nixon’s “sort of” responses to his questions, although he attempted to not let it show. “Are you capable of giving me a straight answer, Lew?”

Looking serious for a moment, Lewis regarded his friend, having forgotten what it was like to be so new to all of this. He’d spent years waiting, he had just assumed that everything would fall into place as it should and there wouldn’t be much to it. Nixon’s own experience hadn’t been so pleasant – his mother and father had been waiting for him. Doris had spent the entirety of their time together interrogating him about his wife that she had never had the chance to meet, and Stanhope couldn’t be bothered to say much of anything. Lewis scooted his chair closer to Dick’s and sighed, his hand still comfortingly clasped over his friend’s.

“Dick, it’s whatever you want to make of it, really,” Nixon said. “This isn’t Purgatory – it’s just a house. I’m not an angel – I’m just dead. And wherever you’re going to isn’t Heaven – it’s just the next phase.” He leaned back in his chair a little, watching as Dick absorbed all of the information. “It’s whatever you make of it, Dick.” Sitting there in his chair at Lewis’ side, Dick looked thoughtful. He glanced toward the grandfather clock at the other end of the room, and Lewis squeezed his hand. “It’s not going to start ticking anytime soon, buddy.”

The two sat there silently for a few moments, Dick looking at his hands, Lewis squeezing the one under his grasp. Dick wondered how many other people had sat in a similar position, attempting to calm all of the thoughts that flew about in their heads, about family, friends, unfinished business, simply trying to process all of the data they had been given. In his life, Dick had never really been afraid of death, he’d simply accepted and made peace with the fact that he was bound to do it at one point. There had a time, when he had been much younger, that he didn’t even think about it, due to simply sliding past it so often. But sitting there with Lewis in a new house that was as old as eternity, he was intensely confused about it.

“You said I began the next part of my journey,” Dick said, looking up at Lewis. “What is that? Whatever I make of it too?”

Nixon nodded, smiling. “Yeah. All you have to do is leave.”

“Leave?” Dick asked, furrowing his brow and looking shocked by the audacity of doing such a thing. Hadn’t he just arrived?

Letting go of Dick’s hand, Lewis pointed toward the living room where Dick had initially found himself. “There’s a doorway over there. And beyond it is the rest of your journey.” Following Nixon’s pointed finger, Dick’s eyes went to the direction of the living room, which was just out of sight. He could see the archway leading back to it, the one that he had come through. He looked back at Lewis to find him leaning back in his chair, lighting another cigarette. He inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out past his nostrils. He glanced over at Dick and grinned. “There are pluses to this sort of thing – I don’t have to worry about emphysema anymore.”

Dick laughed, a hearty sort of one which Lewis was thrilled to hear. “It’s nice to see you indulging in your vices without concern.”

Nixon shrugged, taking another puff from his cigarette. “Everything in moderation here, though. Trust me – I’d be smoking three at a time if They didn’t allow everything in moderation.”

“So who are They?” Dick asked. Lewis opened his mouth to respond, but Winters held his hand up. “Wait. Never mind, let me guess. Whatever I make of Them, right?”

Regarding his friend for a moment and looking utterly dumbfounded, Lewis finally allowed himself to chuckle. “Smart cookie. Always was, that Dick Winters.” He puffed away at his cigarette for a moment, simply enjoying the silence he shared with his friend. “How are you doing?”

“Okay,” Dick replied, his eyes going back to the clock. “It’s a lot to take in, a lot of information to hold onto. It wasn’t really a surprise, Lew. I kind of knew it was coming. I’m just surprised that I’m here. I didn’t know what to expect, really.”

“No one ever does,” Lewis said, joining Dick in looking at the clock. “Nice, isn’t it?” he remarked after a moment.

“Did it come with the house?” Dick asked, looking back at Nixon and grinning.

Shrugging, Lewis placed his cigarette in the ashtray. “Everyone gets a clock. I told Them that you would like this one, though.” After a moment, he asked, “Do you remember it?”

“Yeah,” Winters replied, getting up from the chair and walking toward the grandfather clock. He reached out, his fingers grazing the mahogany. “It’s the one I gave you for a wedding present.”

“Grace hated that thing,” Lewis grumbled, standing up and slowly walking to the other end of the room. “I’m pretty sure that she hated you for giving it to us, because whenever we would go somewhere for a long period of time, I’d insist on bringing it. ‘A monstrosity,’ she called it,” Lewis recalled, coming to stand next to his friend. Dick looked at him, and Lewis met his gaze. “She still has it. Loves the thing to pieces, apparently. Crazy woman.”

Dick smiled, looking back at the clock. “I have one more question.”

“Go for it.”

He looked at Lewis, who hadn’t stopped looking at him, even when he had turned his attention back to the clock. “Why is it that we look so young?”

“Familiarity,” Lewis replied with a smile. “That’s all it is. You’re still damn near one hundred-years-old; I’m still a spring chicken at seventy-something.”

Dick nodded and smiled, clearly happy with the answer that Lewis had given him. They stood looking at the clock for a while longer, and Dick allowed himself to come to terms, to peace, with the circumstances that he found himself in. Every time he looked back to Lewis, his old friend was already looking at him, smiling broadly.

“I missed you,” Nixon finally said.

Sighing, Dick turned and pulled his friend into his arms, hugging him as tightly as he could manage. He pressed his face into Lewis’ shoulder, and held him close. “I missed you too.”

#

Lewis sat in a chair toward the back of the room, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, watching intently as Dick stood in front of the doorway. Dick wriggled his fingers and balled his hands into fists while he stared the door down, before sighing and looking back at Lewis.

“Lew, I’m kind of scared,” he said.

“You’re allowed to be,” Nixon said, smiling reassuringly at his friend. “It’s something that we all go through. I stood in front of the door for twenty minutes listening to my mother yell at me before I could actually bring myself to open the damn thing. And it was more or less to get away from her.”

Dick laughed nervously, turning his attention back to the door, almost hoping that it had gone. But it was still there and hadn’t changed a bit. He swallowed hard, looking back over at Lewis. “You can’t come with me?”

Lewis shook his head, leaning back in the chair. “It’s not my journey, Dick. It’s yours.”

Nodding, Dick looked at the door again. He bit his lip, again, turning his head toward Lewis. “You’ll be there, right? On the other side?”

Smiling through the hint of sadness visible on his face, Nixon nodded slightly. “It’s whatever you make of it, Dick. I’ll be there in some capacity if you want me there. The other boys will be too. Harry’s been itching to see you again. It all comes down to whatever you want out of it.”

His eyes trained on the door, he took a step forward, followed by another. He stopped; he really didn’t want to take another step. But his feet wanted him to move now, and they helped him move once more, put one foot in front of the other. The doorknob was within reaching distance, and he slowly raised his arm, stopping himself suddenly. He stood there frozen in time briefly, before looking back at Lewis one last time.

“I know that you can’t come with me,” he said softly, “but could you at least stand beside me as I go?”

“Yeah,” Lewis replied almost instantly, but having been almost taken aback by the request. “Yeah, of course.”

He was on his feet before he even finished his sentence, and at his friend’s side seconds later. Giving Dick a reassuring smile, he placed his hand on his shoulder and gave him a comforting squeeze. “I’ll be there, I promise,” he whispered. “It’s okay to be scared. But you don’t have to be. Everything’s going to be fine.”

It almost sounded like the empty words that soldiers in combat occasionally told one another, while someone lay dying long before they were meant to, comforting them in their last moments when everyone knew that hope was truly lost. Nodding his understanding, Dick tried to match Lewis’ smile, but he didn’t seem capable of doing so. He’d been scared of a lot of things, particularly during the war, but he’d learned to never let it show. Now, here at the end of all things, he let his face wear his emotions, and Lewis just continued to smile at him in that reassuring way.

It felt like a war – happening far too quickly and feeling like it was not happening to him, that he was merely an observer to the events in his own life. With Lewis still standing beside him, Dick opened the door. He took a moment to stand there and appreciate it. He’d never seen anything like it before …

#

It hadn’t hurt.


End file.
